Don Young: Lipstick on a pig

With two federal grand juries investigating his pork barreling, it was time for Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, to find a new name for his annual “Pig Roast” fundraiser. The event, last weekend, was titled “Taste of Alaska.”

The 49th state’s Congressman-for-life – who has served for 35 years – is in (borrowing a famous George Bush Sr. phrase) the “Deep Doo-Doo.”

Young has shelled out more than $1 million in legal fees to the Washington, D.C., law firm of Akin Gump.

The Republican congressman is being investigated for ties to VECO, the oil services firm that bought Alaska politicians. Both a grand jury, and the House of Representatives itself, are probing a Florida freeway earmark — spending that appeared in a transportation bill without any House vote on it.

Developers supporting the Florida project made generous campaign contributions to the congressman from far away Alaska.

Young is a onetime riverboat captain famous for his salty language. He once described national park recreationists as “jet setting hippie backpackers.” Appearing before a high school assembly in Fairbanks, he used an obscene phrase for anal sex to describe art projects getting financial help from the National Endowment for the Arts.

He became known nationally as chief advocate of the “Bridge to Nowhere,” a $200 million project that would have connected Ketchikan to nearby Gravina Island (pop. 50) where the city’s airport is located.

Young is being challenged in the Aug. 26th Alaska Republican primary by GOP Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell.

A powerful political action committee of rich Wall Street supply siders, the Club for Growth (often nicknamed the “Club for Greed”), has poured $100,000 into advertisements boosting Parnell.

A recent poll by the Anchorage Daily News and KTUU-TV put Young ahead of Parnell by a margin of 45.9 percent to 40.4 percent.

In a general election matchup, however, the “Congressman for life” trails Democratic challenger Ethan Berkowitz, a former state legislator, by a margin of 51.3 percent to 40.6 percent.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer held a quiet dinner fundraiser for Berkowitz in Seattle last week.

In the last two years, the “pig roast” became a focal point for Young’s critics. It is held annually in the home of former Alaska Gov. Bill Sheffield, who was nearly impeached in a scandal over a Fairbanks building owned by friends being used as the site of state offices.

Last year, about 75 demonstrators — many wearing pig masks — chanted “Oink! Oink!” and “FBI! FBI!” as guests arrived for the Young fundraiser. A Young aide and a local radio talk host got into a brief scuffle.